


Walking in his shoes

by marlowe78



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Schmoop, Sharing Clothes, bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe78/pseuds/marlowe78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam had had a difficult childhood. That was the only reason why he delighted in the suffering of his big (but smaller) brother.<br/>Written for the hoodie_time-schmoop-fest, prompt: clothes-sharing (bonus: use of Sam's hoodie), No spoilers for any season!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking in his shoes

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit older, I'm transferring my fics here.  
> Sorry if you know this already... :-)

It was ridiculous. Dean could still remember clearly the time when Sam used to wear his clothes, re-using them out of necessity and lack of money. He remembered all the bitching and moaning Sammy did, the sighs and pained looks his father would be assaulted with. Dean could see it in his minds eye, the way his old, tatty jeans slunk off his brother’s hips whenever they weren’t fastened with a belt. 

Man, Sam had been skinny, then. 

Above all, though, Dean could remember the hurt and devastation on the kid’s features whenever Dad announced that they needed to buckle up and save money so they could buy more ammo, some much-needed old book, guns, a crossbow. 

Dean had practically heard the hope fall from Sam’s face, hitting the floor and shattering whenever the funds were low. What a whiney brat, he had used to think. Survival should be much more important than a dress-code. Hell, if the chicks were digging him in whatever clothes he’d wear, even dirty and smelly, Sam shouldn’t have been so worried that some girl wouldn’t look at him twice. She’d not be worth it if she did, anyway.

As an older brother, it had been his right and his job to poke fun at his sibling, at his baggy clothes. Sure, he’d had been kind with his poking, going light on the boy so he wouldn’t be too embarrassed. But teasing was necessary, was natural. Poor kid, he had looked like a refugee, especially in between growing _up_ and growing _out_.

If he closed his eyes, he would see sixteen-year-old Sam in his old plaid-shirt, the one with the green checks. “That’ll do for a few months more. We might not get to shop clothes for a while.” He’d be able to paint the devastation and utter humiliation on the teen’s face, standing in front of Dad and hearing that. 

That is, if he ever evolved above crude comics and stick-figures.

Sure, he’d held sympathy for Sam. Tried to be extra nice, only light teasing, no pranks, not even mentioning the ripped-off button on the left cuff. He’d been a good brother, really.

It’s just that Dean never really understood that look on Sam’s face. 

***

“Oh, come on! You can’t be serious!”  
“Dean, do you really think I’d want you to wear my clothes?”  
“Yes!”

Though Sam didn’t say anything, his evil grin was confirmation enough.  
“I knew it. I’m injured and you delight in torturing me on top of it? What kind of brother are you, anyway…”, Dean muttered. Disgusted, he rolled up the legs of Sam’s jeans so they wouldn’t scuffle on the pavement and get ripped underneath the heels of Sam’s clown-sized Tennis-shoes, which were two sizes too big but really the only shoes that would hold on his feet. 

Dean wouldn’t have bothered, but Sam made him roll the legs up. He’d _demanded_ it as the price to wear the jeans at all. Not fair, Dean thought, but short of walking around in boxers - _Sam’s_ boxers! – he had capitulated and agreed. 

But it was still ridiculous.

“Stop whining. We are on a job, we need to talk to the Henderson’s, work the bars. Also, there is some research due.” Dean didn’t care for the mad glint in his brother’s eyes. With good reasons, it turned out: “I’ll let you do the talking, since I know you hate libraries.” 

So he changed into a suit. Sam’s suit, glad that the ill-fitting jacket hid the fact the shirt was too wide for him around the shoulders. 

***

“I hate you. I really, really hate you, Sam. So don’t talk to me, not until after dinner!” That was the first thing he said, stepping into the motel and slamming the door shut.  
The interview with the very reluctant witnesses of the gruesome and revolting murder had gone as well as expected. Meaning not well at all. 

Mr Henderson, fifty-six, bald, fat, disgustingly rich, had looked at Dean like he would look at a cockroach, shortly before stumping it to the floor. Or better, ordering someone to stump it, carefully, so as not to get the marble stained. Hilary, his wife, thirty-three, pretty beyond nature, bored out of her mind, had flirted with him and not only slipped him her number but also a hundred dollars “to buy something pretty, sexy”. Even though Dean wasn’t above taking money offered freely, the beneficial contempt paired with the flirt had stung more than her husband’s open disgust. It had made him feel dirty and somehow used, even though he hadn’t done more than smile at her, teeth clenched painfully.

To top that experience up, he hadn’t even gotten anything, except for a new sympathy for real cops who had to take such crap on a regular basis.

“Awww, is little big brother grumpy? Come on, I’ll take you out. There is this nice diner across the street. Betty from the library said that they made the best pie in the state.” 

Not even the prospect of wearing Sam’s jeans and shirts again made Dean lose the happy glimmer in his eyes.

***

After his second pie – almond–raspberry and it was delicious – Dean couldn’t ignore it anymore.  
“Dude, are they staring at us?” Sam turned around, smiling at the other patrons, grinning when their waitress smiled back, a little hesitant.  
“Nope. They aren’t.”  
Dean wasn’t convinced, though, mostly because whenever he turned around, the people in the diner twisted their heads away in that fast, traitorous motion that indicated secret spying had gone on. He stared at his brother.  
“Not at _us_ ”, Sam grinned.

With an angry huff, Dean stood and left, a little disgusted and without even giving Kelly, the cute little waitress, a second glance. He pretended not to notice that Sam hung back and talked to her, even smiling and having fun – at his expense, he was certain.

Dean crossed the street, determined to not leave his room until his clothes were clean and dry again. How much bad luck can you get? Getting bruised from head to toe, getting thrown into a sewer, getting your clothes-duffel thrown in as well for some strange reason only their recent monster knew about _and_ being stuck in a town where the owner of the only laundromat had declared bankrupt and moved to Tahiti, or Thailand? Turkey. Something with a ‘t’. So now, they had a sealed bag with toxic waste in their trunk, formerly known as his clothes, and not enough time to make the trip to the next city. At least Dean hadn’t drowned in the waste, as it had been the goal of his trip into the gutter. He kinda owed Sam, but man, this was getting real old, real fast.

And he ached with every step, much more so because he damn well refused to let it out in front of Sam. He wasn’t so delusional to believe the geek didn’t know anyway, but he had to keep up appearance, if only for the sake of his own mind.

*

Evening came along and the brothers had to check the local bars for their prey – or at least for the prey of their prey. It was the second bar – “Taylors’ Tavern”, complete with the faultily-placed apostrophe and saw-dust on the floor – where Dean’s attire caused a fight.

Really, how desperate for trouble were these locals that someone in too big clothes was a target for harassment? Did they think he wouldn’t be able to pay for that brew they called beer? 

“We don’t want your kind in here” said Yokel one.  
“Huh? What kind?” said Dean, not even trying to be cocky, because he couldn’t think of anything that would have made him any kind different from a guy with a beer.

“Dontcha get funny with me, boy!”  
“Dan, stop it.” The bartender, Yokel two, big, burly and smelly, interfered. “Look, boy. Maybe it’s better if you leave. You and your… friend.”  
Dean looked over to where Sam was chatting with one very uncomfortable looking man in dusty pants and a chequered shirt, obviously just in from his farm.  
“Sam? What’d he do?”  
“Boy” and this time the bartender was faced with a glare, because really, Dean was thirty-two and the time he let himself be called ‘boy’ by anyone not family was truly over by now. “Just get him outta here, and yourself, and go … somewhere else.”

“I show him the way?” Yokel one asked with a sneer, and even with his bulk he wasn’t really a match for Dean or Sam, but Yokel one – Dan – didn’t seem to think so.

“Look, man. We don’t want trouble, ok? We just came here to…” he didn’t even get to finish his sentence. Dan grabbed his shoulder with a strong, meaty hand and push-pulled him away from the bar, not listening to the resigned “Dan…!” from Yokel two.

The hand managed to hit one of Dean’s many bruises, so it was nothing but instinct that had Dean flinching and bringing up his elbow to get free and cause pain in his assailant. He heard his brother call him but kinda had too much on his plate to react, because Yokel two was over the bar faster than his bulk would have suggested and yanked him back in order to punch his jaw to brittle. Dean let go of reason and let instinct take over.

***

The first punches were like a gift. Dean knocked Dan and the bartender around some, feeling happy and delighted about finally being able to get some revenge on someone for the shitty days he'd had. He was fast and precise; knowing where to hit to cause maximum distraction and minimum damage had been one of the important lessons for bar-brawls their dad had given them. 

The fight would have been over only minutes after starting, Sam needn't even have to step in, if the local crowd hadn't been loyal enough to form a front against the stranger. But they were and after knocking Dan out and giving Yokel two a bloody nose, Dean _fucking tripped_ over the large shoe and on his too-long pant-legs and stumbled into another attacker. Before he could do anything, he was grabbed from behind and held immobile while some dipshit with a baseball-cap and beady eyes tried to relocate his intestines. 

Dipshit got two heavy punches in before Sam grabbed him and knocked him out cold, fury in his eyes and a growl in his throat, warning everyone away from his brother, who was sagging in the grip on his arms and who nonetheless felt a deep sympathy for the poor bastards who would get into trouble with Sam. 

The world went fuzzy for a while and when Dean was able to get a clear look around again, he was outside, sitting sideways on the passenger-seat of the Impala, Sam in front of him with a frown on his face that was part exasperation and part concern.

"What the hell happened there, man? You were supposed to ask them questions, not start a fight!"  
"Dude, I didn't do anything" Dean groaned. "They started blubbering about 'my kind' and then this fat fucker started punching." He was really puzzled about that. "Dunno what that was all about, I swear!"

Sam sighed and pushed his hair from his forehead. For a minute, before he did that, he had looked years younger, nearly as innocent and young as he had looked after Dean grabbed him away from Stanford. Now though, all the pain and weight was back on his features. Not like a little brother. More like an adult. A long-suffering adult in front of a child who had misbehaved. 

***

"One of them called us fags," Sam offered, taking pity in his brother's puzzled and battered state.  
"Why? Did you grab my ass, or what?" It wasn't the first time that assumption had been made, but until now they hadn't been met with violence.  
"I guess _becauseoftheclothesmaybe?_ " Sam mumbled, not wanting to laugh or cause more misery in Dean about wearing his younger brother's pants. Revenge for years of humiliation was one thing. Getting him injured was something completely different.

"What? Great. I told you, this is not right. First, I have to roll up my jeans"  
"My jeans"  
"Shut up! Second, I trip over the fucking _rolled up_ leg because of these boats I wear, third I get gay-bashed because I wear stuff that isn't mine. What the hell is wrong with those dipshits? Why would anyone assume we fuck, just because my own stuff smells like a sewer?"

It wasn't funny. Still, Sam couldn't suppress the grin any longer. Dean looked cute with his too-big clothes and the indignation on his face. It wasn't right, his brother wasn't 'cute', he was a hunter and a damn good one at that. He certainly wasn't cuddly or sweet, but the long shirtsleeves that kept riding down over his wrists and that Dean pushed up over and over again… made him look exactly that. Cute. And smaller than he really was. Sam couldn't help the urge to grab and cuddle him, could barely resist, in fact.

"Don't even!" Dean growled. And looked incredibly cute doing it. "Just get me back to my bed. And you better find this thing alone, because I'm not leaving the room until we're on our way out of this town or you find me some clothes that fit me.”

***

Though Sam really tried to help his brother’s misery, there wasn’t a single pair of jeans to find in this town. In fact, there wasn’t even any pair of pants that was fit to be worn by Dean in the convenience-store, no matter the material. Even the hardware-store that sold work-clothes didn’t have a shirt or pants that wouldn’t look funny or wrong on Dean. The whole town seemed to be inhabited by either skinny little guys or fat big ones. 

Sam tried, he really did. But all he could come up with were some t-shirts that had roughly the right size and those weren’t enough, since it was November and the temperature didn’t allow for bare arms.  
When he returned to the motel, though, his good intentions vanished like sleet on a hot stove. 

Dean was sitting on the bed, Sam’s most comfortable pair of jeans –the one that fit best on his brother’s waist – in his lap. In his hand, he held a big and wickedly sharp knife and was just about to cut off the last inches of the legs.

“STOP!”  
Sam was mighty pleased about the reaction he got: Dean startled so hard that he actually jumped a bit on the mattress, nearly losing the knife. His eyes were huge and round, his mouth a bit open in surprise. And damn, that didn’t make him look cute and sweet and cuddly. Not at all, in Sam’s hoodie that made Dean's admittedly wide shoulders seem small and made him look thin rather than slim and well-muscled. In short, he didn’t look like a vulnerable little boy, a feat that wasn’t enhanced by the bruised cheekbone he was sporting, and Sam totally didn’t feel like apologizing and hugging the crap out of his brother. 

No, not at all. 

***

“You dare to finish this and you’ll be wearing my stuff for the rest of your life, ass-face. I’ll chain you to my wrist if that is what it’ll take ”, Sam growled. Dean didn’t believe that he would really go to that extremes, especially since it would be really uncomfortable for both parties, but he did drop the knife, a bit sheepishly. He had hoped to be finished before Sam came back, but since he'd only gotten the idea a few minutes ago, he seemed to have lost the initiative. 

“Sorry” he grinned and put the knife back in its sheath. “Did you bring me something?” Hopping off the bed, he hitched the too-wide sweat-pants up. 

In all fairness, they were too wide for Sam, too, since his gigantor-brother had a waist that was a bit more narrow than Dean’s. Which made clothes-sharing even more awkward. He had to wear pants that were too long but pinched a bit on his stomach when he sat and felt too tight on his ass, but the legs were so long they wouldn’t ever be considered anything but that: too long. 

The freak of nature had been bigger than him for some time now and in the last year, Sam's shoulders had hulked out to unbelievable dimensions. It was unfair that the person who all his life had been at least the slimmer, skinnier brother had bulked his chest and shoulders to a level that made Dean himself look and feel small. 

He wasn’t. Small. He knew that. Every time he looked in the mirror or held a woman in his arms he was reassured of that, but living in close quarters with the Incredible Hulk warped his realities sometimes. 

The look Sam got just now, similar to the one yesterday night, was a bit creepy, too. It was the Sam-Winchester patented “Talking-to-victims-and-small-children-look”, number 18 in the Book of Sam’s Expressions. 

Huh. Maybe he could use this to his advantage?

“Did you get me presents? Show me?” he made his own version of the puppy eyes and to his astonishment Sam seemed to melt in front of him. Hee!

“Sorry,” did Sam just hide his eyes in embarrassment? “Couldn’t find anything. Got you some t-shirts, but all short-sleeved. Really, this town is made of strangely-shaped persons, I swear. Not even…”  
“Not even what?”  
“ _noteveninthewomenssectiondidtheyhaveanything_ ”  
It took a while, but Dean was so used to Sam’s mumbles that he figured this one out alone. He raised his eyebrows as high as they would go. “You looked in the chick-section? What, not enough that they beat me up for wearing another man’s stuff, now you want me to cross-dress as well? You want me to be kicked out of town, maybe tared and feathered as well?”

“NO!” Sam was horrified, which was a bit of a relief. “Man, there wasn’t anything, and I figured maybe, if the ch…women here were shaped strangely as well... Seems, though, that they are either too big or too slim, just like the guys. And all of them are maybe five feet tall, so…”  
Dean grimaced in disgust. The idea of walking around in jeans too short was even more undignified than walking in too long ones, so he should probably be glad that Sam wasn’t a midget instead of a giant.  
“Man, I want out of here. Yesterday, preferably.”

“Yeah, I get that. Here” Sam handed over the shirts, still wrapped in the plastic and Dean had to admit that even though they were not going to make a difference under his brother’s button-down-shirts, it felt like heaven to finally wear something that fit. “I found out something, though, so if I’m right, we can finish this hunt and leave tomorrow. Day after if you trip over the jeans again.”  
“Haha” Dean bared his teeth at Sam’s teasing remark and accompanying smirk. “Good, what did you find?”

***

Of course Sam was right. When has he ever not been right? Good thing they had left all their stuff in the motel this time, because now they both were soaked and smelled like crap.  
But at least the nasty thing was dead and the showers worked and the puppy-eyes had had the desired effect of getting the first shower. Sitting on the bed, even with more bruises and a sprained ankle and dislocated/re-located/taped-and-splinted finger felt fantastic. Clean sheets, a soft and still firm mattress, clean hair and soapy smell… amazing what those can do to the morale. Even that the shampoo smelled like coconuts and his soap had the distinct aroma of pineapple didn’t spoil his mood any. So he smelled like Pina Colada? Who cared.

Tomorrow they would leave, find a washing-machine or buy new clothes if nothing was salvageable. No more sharing with his little brother; his own boxer-shorts. Fitting shoes! His own socks, which wouldn’t ride down in his boots anymore. Jeans that didn’t pinch and make him stumble and look like an idiot. What else can a man ask for?

And this huge, fleecy, warm and soft hoodie of Sam made him feel all comfy and meek. He snuggled into the pillow and closed his eyes, drifting a bit to the sound of running water from the shower next door.

***

When Sam left the bathroom, accompanied by a cloud of steam, he spotted the brother-shaped lump on the bed immediately. Something stuck in his throat at the sight.

Dean was sprawled on the sheets, face mushed into the pillow. He looked peaceful and relaxed, loose-limbed and warm on the mattress, his legs bare, his hair still damp and not spiked into form. He was wearing Sam’s favourite hoodie and the hood, slightly covering his head, made him look all of sixteen, if not younger. He couldn’t even remember when Dean had looked so young. Not when he’d actually been that age, that much was certain. 

Being swamped by a hoodie was a good look on him, Sam decided. It made him feel like the one responsible, like he could actually keep Dean safe for once. Like he could make his brother’s life a bit more secure and manageable. 

Like being the big brother for once.  
.


End file.
